The present invention relates generally to online systems and more particularly to claims-based querying in an online system.
In recent years, online systems, particularly social networking systems, have made it easier for users to share their interests and preferences in real-world concepts, such as their favorite movies, musicians, celebrities, soft drinks, hobbies, sports teams, and activities. These interests may be declared by users in user profiles and may also be inferred by social networking systems. Users may also interact with these real-world concepts through multiple communication channels on social networking systems. For example, users interact with pages on the social networking system, share interesting articles about causes and issues with other users on the social networking system, and comment on actions generated by other users on objects external to the social networking system. Additionally, a social networking system notifies users of actions performed on objects external to the social networking system by other users. Social networking system users also frequently search for various phrases in the social networking system, such as their favorite celebrities, restaurants, karaoke bars, or other content.
A search engine provided by a social networking system may return search results of content posted to the social networking system relevant to the search queries. For example, the search engine provides a user with content item posts, users, entities, pages, groups, events, and applications in the social networking system, that are relevant to received search queries. Simple search engines only return results based on keywords included in the content on the social networking system. However, social networking systems may also record user behavior and interests in addition to posted content, which are not identified by conventional search engines.
Specifically, information available on social networking systems about users' interactions with the social networking system is not accessible to other users as search criteria. Because users may perform thousands of searches on objects within and external to the social networking system on a daily basis, this inaccessibility of user behaviors and interests in online systems limits the information accessible to users searching via the social networking system. These limited search results may reduce user interaction with social networking systems.